I have lived here some time now,
on this melancholy creek.
Like Monet, I have my boat,
black like his, calked to float.
For 10 years I've written here,
slept and woke here, drunk my tea.
The heron, the osprey know me,
the rain, the wind and winter's ice,
summer's orangey, strangling noons.
Often I've tried, not too well,
to make verses from what I knew,
with little doubt to divert my mind
When luck has come to my inky paints
rhymes go like ropes ashore,
tying themselves around you to trees
to have that near-taut sanctity.